


Kuwabara, Kuwabara

by theskywasblue



Category: Lost Souls - Poppy Z Brite
Genre: Birthday, M/M, Weather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-07
Updated: 2010-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Ghost, caught in a storm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kuwabara, Kuwabara

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dr_zook](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dr_zook).



The rain stopped just as they reached the top of the hill, leaving the air warm, wet, and sweet, but heavy; as if the world was holding its breath. Steve cursed fiercely and stamped his boots on the wet grass, tossing his head like a wild horse. Ghost stood with his head down, hair hanging in pale strings over his blue eyes and dripping water onto his chin. He looked back behind them, but the small hills blocked the T-bird from sight. After the rain it was probably shining like a polished bullet, looking every inch the dream car, blown tires and all.

“Fuck – fucking figures,” Steve scrubbed his hands across his face, “Fucking T-bird. It’s cursed Ghost – cursed. Just scrap it – I’ll leave it out there on the highway, let the vultures have it.”

Ghost felt bad hearing him say those things. He was the one who had asked to go for a drive, even though the T-bird had been acting up lately, knowing Steve wouldn’t say no, because it was his birthday. He wouldn’t have asked if he had known what would happen. But you couldn’t really predict anything, even though Ghost sometimes got bad feelings or saw things against the backs of his eyelids that he saw again later when his eyes were open, nothing was ever really set in stone. Life was a lightning strike, sharp, bright and branching in a dozen directions every time you caught sight of it.

He still felt bad about the T-bird though.

“Come on,” he wrapped his fingers around Steve’s wrist and pulled gently, “we’ll get back if we go this way.”

“Sure,” Steve growled, “whatever. I’m fucking tired already Ghost – can’t we stop?”

Ghost wanted to agree, his feet hurt. Somewhere in the nearby trees there might be a log, some place where he could stretch out and close his eyes; and he had just turned towards them in silent agreement with Steve’s desire when the wind swept up suddenly around them, whipping droplets against Ghost’s cheeks. Thunder clapped, near enough to make his ears ring and Steve almost threw himself to the ground in surprise – might have if not for Ghost’s grip on his arm. A flash of lightning threw everything into silver-blue relief and the air was sharpened by a sweet live-wire smell. Ghost felt electricity prickle along his arms and raise the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Ghost don’t just stand there!”

The world seemed to stretch away forever, and where the sinking sun pushed against the clouds it looked like the earth was on fire, pouring smoke into the darkening sky.

“Ghost!” Steve grabbed his shoulders and shook hard, actually jarring something in Ghost’s neck, “Come _on_.”

“No,” Ghost reached up, curled his fingers in the soaked fabric of Steve’s shirt, warm from the heat of his skin rather than cold the way Ghost had expected. Steve tried to pull away, but he held on tight. “You shouldn’t stand under a tree in a storm.”

“We can’t stand here!”

Steve’s eyes were panic-wide. Rain came down so hard that it stung Ghost’s scalp. He couldn’t let Steve go, couldn’t let him run. The trees were false safety and lightning was like a wild dog, the more they ran, the more it would chase them. So instead he held on, tight and pleading as the thunder cracked overhead, drowning out even the sound of his own heartbeat, until Steve gave up trying to run and clung to him instead, one palm flat at the base of Ghost’s spine, two fingers of his other hand hooked through Ghost’s belt loop.

Daylight seemed to crumple around them, until they stood pressed chest to chest as if in the eye of a great hurricane of wind, noise and darkness. Steve would never admit to being afraid, but he was; the world had to be within his control to make any sense at all, but the storm was so beyond him, so above him, that it made him panic. He couldn’t intimidate it and make it back down.

Steve could make himself believe in magic, if Ghost led him gently by the hand, but he couldn’t make himself believe that the world – the great, wide, powerful world – could be safe even if it was stronger than he was.

He could trust Ghost though, that never wavered, even as he looked at Ghost with eyes that pleaded for a certainty that Ghost could not provide, lips moving soundlessly - _one one thousand, two one thousand..._ it took a moment for Ghost to realize what he was doing – counting off the seconds between the roar of thunder and the lightning flash they way they had on summer nights in the pup tent behind Steve’s house; one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, until the storm was right above their heads.

Steve used to close his eyes back then. Wild, tough, take no shit Steve Finn closed his eyes during a thunder storm.

And he was still scared now, Ghost could feel it pricking at his skin like little needles, almost painful. He bumped their foreheads together, looked deep into Steve’s full-moon eyes, and tried to stare the calm into him, put it directly into his spinning mind, or breathe it past his lips.

Steve kissed him instead. Or maybe it wasn’t a kiss, Ghost was never very good at judging those sorts of things; but their lips bushed together and Steve closed his eyes just long enough to miss the way the lightning split apart the sky right above them, washing the colour from the world for an instant. Then the storm passed them over, the worst part of it moving towards Missing Mile instead, where it might meet them again if they moved quickly enough, leaving nothing but a calming rain behind.

“Jesus...” Steve stumbled back, slipping a little in the mud as he wiped his eyes and shook back his hair, “You’re out of your mind Ghost – we could have...”

“But we didn’t.”

Steve wasn’t angry anyway, he was grinning. Ghost could feel his own heart racing in time, and he trembled a little with the sudden elation of life.

“You know,” he said as they pushed through the grass, leaving the place where they had stood together and escaped the notice of great power, heading home where Steve would drink beer and Ghost would have a bottle of good, strong wine to celebrate having been born and living; where they wouldn’t talk of thunderstorms or whether Steve’s eyes had been open or closed, “I’ve thought of a song.”

“Oh yeah?”

Ghost cleared his throat, raised his voice so it chased on the heels of the low roll of thunder he could still hear, like some kind of primal drumbeat. “Heaven,” he sang, “Heaven forbid that the lightning should strike us.”

-End-


End file.
